Warning: Long, overly complex and dramatic wall 'o text ahead. Probably riddled with flawed and sketchy writing, plot holes, and typos at numerous points. I'm currently too tired to care. Oddball formatting thanks to Notepad. I'll move on to more relevant stuff (i.e. not the backstory) when I'm alert enough to do so.
Scizor CT spent entirely too much time and wrote:
How the Oracle Came to Be and Other Errata
Long, long ago...
Though many ruins of the ancient Gnosticene people had been discovered decades ago during a period of exploration, no one had yet set foot in them to
explore them thoroughly. This was in part due to the hostile creatures which inhabit much of Gnosticus IV (though at the time there were far fewer than the
number which live there now), but mostly because the Gnosticene people were generally more interested in developing their technology than digging up relics
from the past. But, owing to a decline in the rate of technological progress, the people decided that perhaps their ancestors had left behind some valuable
information in their ruins, and sent out some expeditions to glean what knowledge and artifacts they could. One of the smaller teams, less than ten men, was
sent out to the Shadowlands, a region far to the west known to contain at least two pyramids constructed by the ancients. They had no idea what might be
found within them, but hoped to at least understand their purpose.
Early progress went smoothly. A small base camp was erected to the north of the pyramids (whimsically named Hillville early on, owing to the terrain
and a bit too much strong drink in celebration of the journey), in order to house their supplies and whatever finds they expected to recover from the ruins.
Disabling the dart traps inside the pyramids proved to be simple enough, and they erected numerous expandable bridges and transports across the boiling tar
pits. To their surprise, they only ran across two forms of life within the pyramids themselves: a small, harmless, and tame species of yellow worm, and some
larger pesky flying insects.
Their initial optimism quickly soured, however. Though the pyramids had some connection to the sun and the moon, there was no evidence to tell what
exactly their purpose was. Very few artifacts and inscriptions remained, none of which were of any help. Even worse, the supplies of food and water the team
brought with them from Hillville each day started vanishing at random when no one was watching. Tensions ran high while resources ran low and, amidst much
accusation and finger-pointing, half of the team decided to explore the rest of the Shadowlands in search of a new source of rations. Though they found
plenty of edible fruits and berries, there seemed to be no supply of drinkable water.
Their wanderings soon brought them to the edge of a desert which stretched as far as they could see in all directions. To their great surprise, a
sandstorm quickly came through and overtook them. While most of the party managed to wait it out in the forest, one man got turned around and ended up
dashing out into the desert, only to see nothing but sand once the storm subsided. What happened next his companions would first call extraordinary luck.
Later, some would instead refer to it as fate. Whatever the cause, the lost man managed to run across a lively oasis in the desert, within it a spring
bubbling up with pure, revivifying water unlike anything known throughout the galaxy. Saved from certain dehydration, the man took as much of the lifewater,
as he called it, with him and set out to the south to try and find the camp. Upon reaching Hillville his comrades were amazed, both at his return and at the
report of a source of water. Encouraged, the team resolved to keep working once they established a solid route to what they now called Lifewater Oasis.
After that, the situation drastically improved. Some forays further south revealed the existence of a third pyramid. Like the first two, it lacked
any distinguishing features or inscriptions that would reveal its purpose. Unlike the first two, this one contained an innumerable amount of artifacts and
relics of the ancient Gnosticenes (and, inexplicably, their lost food and water). The team sent a short message back to the capital that they had made "an
amazing discovery" and "don't worry about us." The next two months were consumed by retrieving, cleaning, cataloging, and packing up the objects from the
pyramid. Though the rations they had brought with them ran out, they were sustained by the local fruit and an endless supply of lifewater. Though their diet
was basic and the days of work long, the men remained fit and healthy.
Perhaps too healthy. As they approached the end of their work, some peculiar things began to occur. Everyone collectively grew less and less hungry,
requiring less food to work throughout the day. The occasional slip with a knife or razor that should have resulted in a painful cut, didn't. They explained
these occurrences away by rationalizing that their limited diet had just affected their metabolism, and their equipment had grown dull after such extended
use. Then two events occurred together that they couldn't explain. The first was the appearance of a giant stone foot where one man's collection of pet
yellow worms had been after he placed another worm in the box. The second was that despite being crushed beneath the foot immediately after, the man survived
with nothing more than a bad case of nerves, which he never quite got over. The entire team was spooked, however, and finding themselves unable to do
anything with the foot, they decided to leave it behind and get out of the Shadowlands as quickly as possible with their artifacts and several flasks of
their precious lifewater.
The artifacts, though of historical interest to the Gnosticenes, proved to be of no scientific value. What intrigued researchers was the
invulnerability every man on the team appeared to have unwittingly obtained. Even after extensive testing, it seemed nothing could harm them, nor did they
need to eat or even breathe. In defiance of all logic or reason, they had become...immortal.
Lacking any other leads, one scientist began examining the things they had brought back with them. Everything seemed ordinary enough, albeit old,
until he came upon one of the flasks of lifewater. Molecularly, it was ordinary water, save for one anomaly: the presence of a new, unknown mineral compound.
Tests on the substance were inconclusive. Its structure was unusual, but it failed to exhibit any properties out of the ordinary. Discouraged, he stored the
sample away and went home for the night. He came back to find that his clock had stopped. This seemed ordinary enough, until it stopped again later in the
day even with fresh batteries. Once the replacement clock that was brought in the next day also stopped, he began to have second thoughts and retrieved the
mineral sample for further testing.
However improbable it was, there was no escaping the truth: the mineral generated a field around itself which literally removed the surrounding area
from the flow of time. In trace amounts, the effect was nearly impossible to detect. But as more of it was brought together, the effect grew exponentially.
All matter brought within range of the field proved to as impervious as the immortal explorers. Being locked out of the flow of time, it seemed that the
physical state of any object was frozen in the state it was in when it first entered the field. Mechanical components would grind to a halt, though living
creatures retained their motor functions. As much lifewater as the Shadowlands team had consumed during their stay, it was no surprise that enough mineral
had built up in their bodies that they eventually "froze".
The discovery sent the entire Gnosticene community into a frenzy. Though the artifacts had not provided the knowledge they were hoping for, the
mineral (which soon came to be called Kronium) had the potential to revolutionize their society. A massive expedition to the Shadowlands was soon organized
to retrieve as much Kronium as possible, as well as to study it out there, where a potential large scale mishap wouldn't freeze their entire civilization. A
new base camp was constructed in the desert itself, called Sand Yego. Drinking lifewater was expressly forbidden; it was too late to reverse the effect on
the original team, but the Gnosticenes recognized the problems associated with immortality and resolved to never let anyone else obtain it, for their own
sake. Initially, Kronium was obtained by distilling lifewater from the oasis. But this failed to produce a quantity large enough to satisfy them, and so
efforts began to dig it out of the planet directly.
After a number of drilling tests around the Shadowlands, it was found that the northern mountains were particularly rich in the mineral and a lesser
amount existed in and around the southern lake. Two vast mines were carved out of the mountains, and multiple smaller excavations were made in the lake area.
Another permanent camp was erected in the mountains as well, which served as the hub for the storage and transport of some of the Kronium back to the
capital. The rest was sent to Sand Yego, where the scientists began testing the limits of the material to see what it could be used for. They proved to be
adept at manipulating its capabilities and soon constructed a large testing site in the eastern portion of the desert as a sort of model city, with Kronium
enhancements. (The site was eventually abandoned, as the severe temporal instability caused the entire complex to begin fading in and out of the time
stream.)
All went well for several months. The northern mines seemed to house a neverending supply of Kronium, and the experiments in the desert had produced
some amazing new technology. The lakeside mines were beginning to dry up, however, and so they began to search the area for richer ground. Instead, what they
came across deep within the forest was yet another pyramid, one which had been missed by all prior attempts at exploration. Unlike the other three the entire
pyramid was sealed, not with locking devices, but a vast amount of Kronium built into the structure itself. The Gnosticenes had some idea of how to contain
the time field by then, and after a series of unsuccessful attempts, managed to force open the main door. They soon wished they hadn't.
Whatever the pyramid had originally been built for and what it contained would remain a mystery, for out of the doorway came flooding a horde of
beasts unlike anything the Gnosticenes had ever seen. Small blue firebreathing spheres, ravenous green arachnids, running rocks, and many more came surging
through the entrance. Even the clouds themselves seemed to come alive. The team that opened the pyramid was swiftly dispatched, and in a matter of days the
creatures had overrun the entirety of the Shadowlands. The Gnosticenes stood no chance and knew it. The Shadowlands were abandoned to the monsters, and
mining began anew further east.
This is not to say that nothing was gained from the expedition. Vast quantities of Kronium had been gathered, and was put to use for a number of
purposes. It was discovered that a strong enough Kronium field would not only stop matter from functioning, but freeze it in physical space until the field
was removed. Through a long and ingenious process, the entire capital and the landmass it rested on was raised up into the air on a structure of supports.
With a strong field applied to the land the supports could be removed, leaving the city floating in the air in a perpetual state of freefall, yet never
dropping an inch. Building a moderately contained Kronium core into a prototype galaxy-wide scanner had a fascinating effect of its own. The scanner
continued to probe the galaxy for information, but being outside of time, its tasks were completed instantaneously. A general search that would have taken
days before was now immediate, and could be done with an immense amount of detail as well. Any data about anything at any place in the galaxy was available
for instant access. The potential of such power and the potential for the abuse of such power was not lost on the Gnosticenes. Rather than dismantle the
machine, it was made so that it could only be activated by the voices of the immortals. Thus, the Oracle came to be.